29 March 2020, Singapore - Global leaders, celebrities, individuals and businesses from 190 countries and territories came together on Saturday, 28th March, to lend their support for the planet. A people-led movement, Earth Hour 2020 beautifully exemplified the resilience of the human spirit amid a crisis. At a time when people across the globe are battling a health crisis of an unforeseen scale, and many countries are under complete lockdown, supporters rose to the challenge of marking Earth Hour with online events. Earth Hour 2020 generated over 3 billion social media impressions globally and its related hashtags trended across 37 countries on Twitter and Google search, making it one of the most successful online events in its history.

Marco Lambertini, Director General, WWF International, said "The success of this year's Earth Hour is a testimony to the incredible human spirit and the power of collective action. At a time when the world is facing an unprecedented challenge in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, the need to unite and make our voices heard for a more harmonious relationship with the planet has never been greater. People from across the globe responded to this call for action by coming out in support for protecting the planet, and inspiring others to commit to halting nature loss with innovative online campaigns and events. I truly applaud their unflinching commitment for a sustainable future. As Earth Hour 2020 comes to a close, I urge you all to continue to work in solidarity with each other to safeguard the future of our planet. Let's look after one another and our one shared home.''

As a symbolic gesture of support to Earth Hour 2020, over 100 iconic buildings including the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Tokyo Skytree, Brandenburg Gate, the Colosseum in Rome, Taipei 101, Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower, Beijing National Stadium, the Ali Qapu Palace, the Hellenic Parliament in Greece, YTN Seoul Tower, Panama Canal, Moscow Kremlin, Tower Bridge in London and the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, switched off their lights, to invite urgent action against nature loss and climate change. Additionally, millions of people around the world switched off the lights of their homes in solidarity with the movement.

Earth Hour 2020 mobilized people across continents to raise their voices on environmental issues affecting their nations.

In South Africa, a digital “Power to the People” campaign was launched for a renewed focus on clean and reliable sources of energy.

Singapore went exclusively digital this year for Earth Hour with “Earth Hour 2020 - Live & Unplugged”, a live stream bringing together the country’s diverse voices for the environment to people across the globe.

Earth Hour Qatar partnered with the Qatar Foundation and online platform AmpUp Videos that allowed videos with Earth Hour filters to be recorded and uploaded on various social media channels.

Nepal saw youth from all over the country come together digitally to raise their #VoiceForThePlanet and share their thoughts, art, and photography on the need to protect and appreciate nature.

Starting as a symbolic ‘lights out’ event in 2007, Earth Hour has grown to become a true mass

movement exemplifying the power of people in driving seismic changes. The spirit of Earth Hour

was demonstrated recently in Uganda which announced a ban on plastic use following an Earth

Hour lead-up march on 13 February against the ill-effects of plastic pollution. This is not a stand-alone example.

Previously, the movement helped create a 3.5 million hectare marine-protected area in Argentina and a 2,700-hectare Earth Hour forest in Uganda, ban all plastics in the Galapagos in 2014, plant 17 million trees in Kazakhstan, light up homes with solar power in India and the Philippines and push new legislation for the protection of seas and forests in Russia. Just last year, French Polynesia moved to protect 5 million square kilometres of its seas to preserve ocean ecosystems.

Earth Hour is WWF's flagship global environmental movement. Born in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour has grown to become one of the world's largest grassroots movements for the environment, inspiring individuals, communities, businesses and organizations in more than 180 countries and territories to take tangible environmental action for over a decade. Historically, Earth Hour has focused on the climate crisis, but more recently, Earth Hour has strived to also bring the pressing issue of nature loss to the fore. The aim is to create an unstoppable movement for nature, as it did when the world came together to tackle climate change. The movement recognizes the role of individuals in creating solutions to the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges and harnesses the collective power of its millions of supporters to drive change.

Earth Hour is kindly supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety with funding from the International Climate Initiative (IKI), as a part of the project “Scaling up Biodiversity Communication”.

About WWF

WWF is an independent conservation organization, with over 30 million followers and a global network active in nearly 100 countries. Our mission is to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which people live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world's biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption. Visit https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/ for the latest news and media resources; follow us on Twitter @WWF_media